Anyone who performs laborious work will attest that nothing beats having the proper tool for a particular job. The proper tool can save time, save money, produce a higher quality job, reduces damage to equipment, and provides for the increased safety of a worker. Each field of the skilled trade has its own type of specialty tools, each performing a specialized task. Wire strippers are commonly used in the electrical field for stripping the outer sheath insulation off of type NM or NMC wire, commonly known as “Romex”. Simple manual wire strippers operate using a pair of opposing blades much like wire cutter with a notch to cut the insulation without cutting the wire.
While these types of conventional wire strippers work great on wire when it is outside of electrical boxes or similar confined areas, the close confines on the interior of such boxes, coupled with the wire size, makes it difficult or impossible to strip the insulation form the electrical wire near the rear of the box. Electricians typically try using straight blade utility knives to cut the insulation and pull it from the wire. This action however subjects the internal conductors to possible damage and accidental shorting at a later date.
Various attempts have been made in the past to overcome these problems and provide a means of stripping insulation from electrical wires. Among the relevant attempts to address these problems are several U.S. patents, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,177,741; 3,221,576; 6,718,848.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,934,991, issued in the name of Kinkade, discloses a combination electrician's tool comprising a pair of pivotally connected pliers having a two (2) cutting jaws which are used for cutting items such as wire and act as a hammering tool when in a closed position.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,395,928, issued in the name of Undin et al., discloses a hand tool for automatically stripping insulation from the end of a wire comprising a pair of gripping jaws which provide a means of holding the wire and pair of cutting and stripping jaws which remove the insulation utilizing an actuating member and a driving member which drives the cutting and stripping jaws away from the gripping jaws.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,079,296, issued in the name of Muromoto, discloses a wire cover peeling tool comprising a gripped body, an operation lever, and clamp arm which are pivotally coupled to a receiving clamp. Two (2) sliding blades extend inwardly from the tip of the receiving clamp and provide a means of cutting a portion of the wire covering and extracting the covering from the wire core.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objective, each of these references suffers from one or more of the following disadvantages: comprising a large wire gripping and cutting and insulation extraction mechanism; causing problems such as damage to the wire core or to adjacent components; or requiring the electric wire to be bent, moved, or pulled from its original position in order to remove the insulation; thus none disclosed a solution to the aforementioned problems.
Additionally, ornamental designs for hand held cutting and stripping tools exist, particularly, U.S. Pat. Nos. D 285,527 and D 458,827. However, none of these designs are similar to the present invention.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an apparatus which provides a means by which type NM or NMC wire can be easily and safely stripped inside of electrical boxes. The development of the present invention fulfills this need.